Saturday, April 28, 2012

It's
time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'! For those unfamiliar with
these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who
spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in
New Mexico , where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid
off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who
would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That's right;
these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the
U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So
keep your head scratcher handy.Here are the Stellas for year -- 2011:

*SEVENTH PLACE*

Kathleen
Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers
after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a
furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the
verdict, considering the running toddler was her own sonStart scratching!

* SIXTH PLACE *

Carl
Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won $74,000 plus medical
expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman
apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when
he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

Scratch some more... * FIFTH PLACE *

Terrence
Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , who was leaving a house he had
just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the
automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the
garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the
door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it
shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a
case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's
insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury
said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We
should all have this kind of anguish Keep scratching. There are more...

Double hand scratching after this one.. *FOURTH PLACE*

Jerry
Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's
when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on
the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was
on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as
he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been
provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over
the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot..

* THIRD PLACE * Amber
Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia
restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft
drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the
floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier
during an argument. Only two more so ease up on the scratching... *SECOND PLACE*

Kara
Walton, of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a
nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor,
knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to
sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover
charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah,
plus dental expenses. Go figure. Ok. Here we go!!

* FIRST PLACE *

This
year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv
Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased new 32-foot
Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game,
having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph
and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to
make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the
freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski
sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't
actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The
Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down?

$1,750,000
PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a
result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who
might also buy a motor home.

If you think the court system is out of control, be sure to pass this one on.

Monday, April 23, 2012

There
are a lot of American citizens that are very vocal about President
Obama's many mistakes, misleading public statements and disturbing
policy decisions. Picky, picky, picky. Just read below a list of many
of his accomplishments in the three short years that he has been in
office, and just imagine what he could accomplish if given another term.

First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

First President to violate the War Powers Act.

First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

First President to defy a Federal Judge's court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.

First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

First President to spend a trillion dollars on 'shovel-ready' jobs when there was no such thing as 'shovel-ready' jobs.

First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

First
President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the
deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with
criminal convictions.

First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

First President to terminate America's ability to put a man in space.

First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke-out on the reasons for their rate increases.

First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-Corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 90 to date.

First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.

First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

First President to go on multiple global 'apology tours'.

First
President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and
Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the
taxpayer.

First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

First
President to repeat the Holy Quran tells us the early morning call of
the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Let me get this straight . . . We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't, which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents.Written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, Passed by a Congress that didn't read it but exempted themselves from it, And signed by a Dumbo president whosmokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes.

For which we'll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare.All to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, Andfinanced by a country that's broke!!!!! 'What could possiblygo wrong?'

Friday, April 20, 2012

"Mrs. Sanders, this is Doctor Jones at Saint Agnes Laboratory. When your husband's doctor sent his biopsy to the lab last week, a biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well. We are now uncertain which one belongs to your husband. Frankly, either way the results are not too good."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.

"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other one tested positive for HIV. We can't tell which is which."

"That's dreadful! Can you do the test again?" questioned Mrs. Sanders.

"Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay for these expensive tests one time."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"The folks at Medicare recommend that you drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him."

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?" The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said that it was no joke. "You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. "When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

"They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. "The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America . The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops, welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

One should always remember two truths: There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself. If you see that all of this wonderful government "help" is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America , you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably delete this email. But, God help us all when the gate slams shut!

Quote for today:

"The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living

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About Me

I am a native San Diegan, a graduate of San Diego State University, a retired aerospace engineer, a genealogist and a family guy.
My wife (Angel Linda) and I have two lovely daughters, and four darling grandchildren. We love to visit them and have them visit us.
Angel Linda and I love to travel to visit friends and relatives, to sightsee, to cruise or to do genealogy. Our travels have taken us all over the USA, to England, Down Under and Scandinavia.
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Contact me via email at randy.seaver@gmail.com